


Hold on to Each Other

by Veriatas



Series: What the Water Gave Me (Selkie'verse) [9]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Mer!Stephanie Brown, Selkie!Bruce Wayne, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veriatas/pseuds/Veriatas
Summary: "So, your dad found a super powerful ocean spirit and his first instinct was to adopt them.""Yup.”"Your dad is insane. Tell him I still refuse to let him adopt me."“You literally live in the ocean caves below our house. I think you’re already adopted.""That doesn't count!”
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Series: What the Water Gave Me (Selkie'verse) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781317
Comments: 16
Kudos: 163





	Hold on to Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely [Bumpkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumpkin) for helping me with ideas, and the wonderful [Niullium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niullum/pseuds/Niullum) for being my beta!
> 
> Title from Florence and the Machine.

"So, your dad found a super powerful ocean spirit and his first instinct was to adopt them." Steph raised an eyebrow at Tim, sceptical. 

"Yuuup," Tim drawled, popping the ‘p’ at the end of the word. “I’m starting to think it’s a habit. Or an instinct. Dad instinct? Dad-adoption instinct?” He stretched his legs out under the water, waves lapping against his chest. He liked to meet Steph here, on the beach, at the point where he could sit comfortably and it was just deep enough for Steph to sit with her tail submerged. Her aubergine and amethyst scales glinted in the sunlight, distorted by the water’s surface into a dazzling gleam of colour. He wished he could photograph it, but it just wasn’t safe. How could he explain it if someone saw?

"Your dad is insane. Tell him I still refuse to let him adopt me." Steph leaned back onto her arms and flicked her tail up into the air. It broke the surface and splashed water all over them.

Tim sputtered, wiping the water off his face. “Rude! Also, you literally live in the ocean caves below our house. I think you’re already adopted."

"That doesn't count!"

“It totally does, Steph.”

“No, it doesn’t! I don’t live in the house with you. I live in the ocean. Doesn’t count!”

Tim eyed her bemusedly, but didn’t argue further. “Anyway, do you want to meet them? All of us are going for a swim this afternoon, Cass included. It’ll be fun!”

Steph squinted at him suspiciously. “Is this another ploy so that your dad can adopt me?”

“No!” Tim laughed exasperatedly. “I just think that you’d like Cass, so you should meet them.”

Steph sighed melodramatically. “I suppose I can discard my busy afternoon schedule of napping in the sunlight to go swimming with you.”

“I appreciate your sacrifice,” Tim said with utmost sincerity, his expression stoic. Until Steph splashed him again and he burst into laughter, Steph’s clicking cackle joining him, their mirth ringing into the air. He couldn’t wait for the afternoon to come.

* * *

Tim was never going to stop being awed by the ocean.

Here, suspended in the water a few hundred meters away from shore, it was both easy and impossible to forget how dangerous it was. Above him, sunlight pierced the surface and made the water glimmer pale turquoise. As he looked down, the sunlight slowly faded until all he could see was a dark abyss, the ocean floor too far for the light to reach. It was beautiful.

From the corner of his eyes he saw something moving, distracting him from his musing. Dick darted about at terrifying speeds, looping and somersaulting his way through the water before zooming around Tim in dizzying circles. Tim giggled as he was spun around in Dick’s wake. 

Jason lazily swam over and nudged his nose into Tim’s side. Tim slung his arms around him and let Jason pull him back over to Cass and Bruce, who had stayed relaxed a while away from Dick’s playful exuberance. 

Cass was eerie to watch in the water, because they were perfectly still. Unlike Tim, they didn’t need to continually swim to keep their position in the water. They just hovered, absolutely motionless, their dark hair streaming around their face and expression serene. They looked so… _otherworldly._

Tim spun himself around in another lazy circle, searching for a glimpse of purple. Steph should be here soon.

He circled around to look at Cass again, still unmoving, still serene. He hoped that they got along with Steph. Despite Steph’s initial formality, she’d turned out to be very relaxed and chatty once he got to know her, and Cass… well. Cass had learned a little bit of English, and a bit more Atlantean, but still preferred to keep their silence. And with Bruce and Dick in their seal form, they wouldn’t be able to translate either. 

Maybe Steph knew some of Cass’s language? Tim knew that she spoke Atlantean and a few Mer dialects, but he wasn’t sure if she knew more. He’d have to ask her when she arrived. 

Tim caught a glimpse of shining aubergine out of the corner of his eye, and then he was suddenly wrapped in a hug and blinded by floating blonde hair. _Think of the devil,_ he supposed.

“Did I surprise you?” Steph laughed.

“No, I saw you right before you hugged me,” Tim smiled at her as she let go of him. He glanced over at Cass to see that they’d opened their eyes. They were watching Steph with an unreadable expression. Steph followed Tim’s gaze over to Cass and tilted her head as she studied them in turn.

“C’mon, come say hi,” he urged.

“Say hi to the super powerful ocean spirit who doesn’t speak the lame language as me,” Steph deadpanned to him. Well, that answered his earlier question.

“They speak a little bit of Atlantean now,” he offered. 

Steph sighed. “Introduce me, then.” Tim looped an arm around her shoulders and let her pull him along as she swam to Cass, taking advantage of the easy way she moved through the water with her powerful tail. Bruce meandered over to them and nudged Steph in greeting, making her giggle and smooth a hand over his head. Cass watched the greeting with a furrowed brow, but they didn’t look hostile. Just curious.

“Hey, Cass,” Tim smiled at them. They tilted their head at him, and then smiled back. Over the past few weeks, Cass had slowly begun to learn Tim’s expressions, and how to communicate with him. It was a lot harder for them to understand Tim than any of the selkies, since they couldn’t lean on their empathy to aid them. But the two of them were making it work. 

“This is Steph,” he introduced, motioning his hand towards her. “She’s the Mer who lives in the ocean caves below our home.”

“Hello, Cass,” Steph smiled at them, a little nervously. Cass studied her briefly before smiling back, shyly. They looked at her and said something in their language, but Steph shook her head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she said with regret in her tone.

Cass frowned for a moment, before reaching out a hand glowing with power, which they then snuffed out and pointed at Steph. “Magic?” They questioned in Atlantean. 

“Oh! Yes, I have magic,” she exclaimed, reaching out her own hands. Cupped in her palms was a small glow of light, flickering with different shades of purple. Tim stared, fascinated. He’d never seen Steph’s magic like this; he’d never really seen it used before at all. She always shifted to her legs out of sight before joining them, when she met them on land, and she didn’t tend to use it on a daily basis. So to see it manifested in physical form was astonishing.

Cass reached their own hands out and cupped them, mimicking Steph and summoning magic to their own palms. Unlike Steph, Cass’s magic flickered midnight blue, so deep it was almost black, lit at the edges with startling gold. The two of them hovered there, almost mirror images. With Steph’s bright hair and gleaming scales, and Cass’s unfathomable eyes and deep shadows, they felt like reflections that didn’t quite match, but complemented each other instead.

It made Steph seem just as otherworldly as Cass, just for a brief second, and Tim was reminded that his friend wasn’t just a Mer, she was a mage.

Cass smiled down at the glow, something soft and fond in their eyes. The expression made them look older, less childlike and more unfathomable. Then they extinguished the glow in their hands and their eyes gained a mischievous gleam instead. 

Steph doused the magic in her hands and squinted at them. “I’m not sure I trust that expression,” she said, and Tim muffled a laugh. Cass grinned, then raised her hands.

Tim could feel the water starting to pull at him, and his eyes widened. Cass turned and shot off through the water at an incredible speed, looping and spinning while their distant laughter trailed back to them. Dick swam up with interested eyes, nudging at Tim’s side.

“Did… did they just create a current, just to play in?” Steph asked, astonished. 

“I think so,” Tim replied, similarly stunned.

“That’s… that’s so much _power,_ ” she murmured. Cass zoomed their way back to their sides, reaching out to tug gently Steph’s wrist. Then gestured at Tim, turned around, and patted their own back. They looked at him with eyes that gleamed with joy and mischief. Tim swam forward, and Cass caught his arms and tugged them around their shoulders. Tim held on tight. 

Cass looked over at Steph, and gently tugged her wrist again. “Play?” Cass asked her in Atlantean.

Steph looked at them with wide eyes, then looked at Tim over their shoulder. He grinned at her. “Okay, Cass,” she replied, grinning fiercely. “Let’s play.”

They shot off through the water together, the selkies diving after them. Tim tucked his head into Cass’s shoulder to guard his eyes from the water streaming past them at rapid speed and laughed.

He knew that Cass and Steph would get along, if they just gave it a chance. He could imagine more afternoons just like this, spending time together and racing through the waves, all his friends and family around him. 

_This is happiness,_ he thought. He pulled the feeling into his chest, cradled it in his heart. He closed his eyes, trusting Cass to keep him safe. He clung to them a little bit tighter and just held on for the ride.


End file.
